| Quote from: Estragon |
As Andy correctly says, all or nearly all the other BT Wholesale ISPs use WBMC. The fundamental difference between WBC and WBMC is that WBC ISPs have to connect to it at every one of the twenty nodes, whereas WBMC traffic is routed within WBC to a selection of them chosen by the individual ISP.
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Yep - that's it.
With WBC, the ISP has to plan and buy the amount of bandwidth it requires around the country. The traffic from each exchange/MSE/BRAS will aggregate (aggregation points) at one of 20 point of service interconnects (POSI) around the country and the ISP needs to buy the correct amount of capacity for each aggregation point. They then need to purchase an extension path from each POSI they require to the point of the connection between their own network and that of BT Wholesale's (known as the multi service interconnect link/MSIL).
With WBMC Shared, you're essentially buying the bandwidth you need on a national level (you also need to purchase the host links that connect your network with that of BT Wholesale's). Ultimately you're handing over responsibility of the planning and management of bandwidth requirements in each part of the country at the POSIs over to BT Wholesale.
| Quote from: npr |
I was hoping I could avoid moving to BT internet or sky, is there any other choices which escapes this issue?
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It depends on what your issue is though.
If you're seeing peak time performance issues and they don't go away by gateway hopping, then it's likely it's more of a localised problem for you. With the 21CN ISPs, the networks are shared at a local level so you would need to move to a LLU ISP to avoid this problem.
| Quote from: alext05 |
Have you also been affected by or often experienced this issue or not? And secondly, what, do you think, would be a permanent solution to this and how quickly it can come?
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I haven't really had any issues, but at the same time I am also not looking for problems. All I care about is whether I am able to go about my normal usage without problems and this basically comes down to streaming (Netflix/Sky Go/iPlayer) and web browsing for the most part.
A couple of years ago, I (and other ISP users in my area) were reporting local capacity problems every couple of months to Plusnet and this got passed on to BT Wholesale. I believe one of the fault's team at Plusnet worked was influential in working with another ISP or two and putting forward a proposal to BT Wholesale so that we we weren't in the same situation every couple of months with capacity issues.
I am sure that the issue that Matthew has mentioned on here will be resolved fairly soon - whether it is the source of all the issues reported on here though, will remain to be seen. I hope once it is resolved, there is some kind of explanation or update as to exactly what the issue was. I suspect that some bit of a network kit was perhaps not working as it should, rather than a specific capacity problem, but this is speculation on my part.
Something people forget is that BT Wholesale generate millions each month from carrying bandwidth, it's a core part of their business. The more bandwidth they carry, the more revenue they generate. So it's in their interests (as much as everyone else's) to resolve any issues that are affecting the amount of bandwidth being used in their network.
